War Wounds
by palomino333
Summary: "The bruises would fade, but the memory of them would always stay."


Medic's conversation with Heavy ties into the scenes of his past as a soldier. His conversation with Spy ties into the scenes of his past as a husband. His right bruised arm represents the memories of the "soldier side," as that arm wields the syringe gun. His left arm represents the "husband side," as a wedding ring is usually worn on the left hand.

* * *

><p>Light reflected brightly off the crystalline droplets as they rose into the air for a moment. The next, however, they became stained bright crimson as they returned to the pool of water from whence they came. The source of this scarlet leakage was a pair of glasses, which were completely splattered with blood. Perched on top of the marble sill that rose above this pool were two doves, their cocked heads inclined slightly up toward their master. The one to the left, affectionately named Socrates, had blood periodically dripping from his beak to his chest. The splash effect made it seem as if the bird had been stabbed, when this in fact hadn't been true. The one to the right, lovingly called Virgil, had blood splattered over both of his wings, and on top of his head.<p>

Medic hissed in frustration as he moved his latex gloves in order to add them to this rather repulsive substance in the basin. Their original bright red was splattered dark with bodily fluid. He never ceased to be astounded by how readily the human body relinquished its blood, the very means of its life, at the flash of a blade. What also never stopped to astonish him was how furiously angry the BLU Soldier was able to make him. The RED team had captured the loud-mouthed son of a bitch after a rather vigorous skirmish at Sawmill. The RED Soldier had wanted to interrogate him, with Pyro providing assistance. That meant Medic was to be saddled with pumping up the BLU Soldier's health to maximum, whether he liked it or not.

He certainly did not. The BLU in question had spent the majority of his time screaming the nastiest insults he could think of off the top of his head. Medic lost count a long time ago of how many times he'd heard the words "fuck" and "cunt." What had really gotten under his skin were the Nazi jokes that had been thrown in his direction. He'd been called Hitler's whore, Himmler's bitch…The insults only got worse. The BLU Soldier had claimed that Medic had senselessly and mercilessly gutted out poor, innocent Jewish children and fed their intestines to dogs, that he'd impaled the heads of American soldiers on spikes for fun, that he'd defiled beautiful young French and Polish women in whatever town he'd been stationed in…The list went on and on.

He really should've known better than to taunt the man that had recently opened his chest cavity. Knowing the Medi Gun, while activated, would keep him alive no matter the circumstances while at full power, Medic completely shredded apart his internal organs. His lungs were mutilated. His heart was sliced in four places. His liver was stabbed full of holes. His stomach was carved clean open, allowing the newly-released acid to corrode several more of his internal organs. Archimedes periodically picked his way through the mess, but was snatched out by his owner once the stomach and been slit. Medic's source of irritation lay in the fact that healing the ingrate would still have to be done. As glorious it was to listen his screams of agony, the procedure needed to be completed. He would have to tell the others that the healing would be delayed by a day. He knew that the only repercussions would be a few scathing looks and murmurings, but that was it. What bothered him greatly was the fact that he had fallen behind schedule when every moment counted in this war.

A scowl formed on his face as he shrugged off his lab coat, which was splattered heavily with the BLU Soldier's blood. The pain-filled groans of the wounded man continued to drift in through the doorway to the other room. Medic's reflection in the mirror above the wash basin was pale, and revealed much age and stress through the lines on his face. His jet black hair was tinted silver on the sides, while his dark blue eyes were shadowed in a disquieting way. He felt surprisingly exposed without his eyewear. Archimedes was balanced faithfully on his right shoulder, his head tucked underneath his wing as he vigorously attempted to clean himself. Medic smirked at that, as there were precious few places where it didn't seem as if the dove had been dipped in red paint.

The mirth was quickly gone, however, as another groan, rather loud in comparison to the previous ones, drifted in. Medic whipped around and yelled angrily, "It is not that bad, schweinehund!"

A stream of curse words came as his reply, and the healer shouted a challenge as to whether he would like his cock surgically sewn to his face. For as much as he relished bloodshed, this was carrying far too much emotional baggage. Medic had met this man on the battlefield many times, but their encounters had been too few and far between for this tirade. How dare he even think of saying this to him! Memories flooded his mind, much like the small pond in the sink. Once upon a time, he had learned the hard way why the word "Nazi" was a word that never could be said. It lay within the guilt-ridden fall of 1944 in Italy, when his hands had temporarily lost their ability to heal, and he became a murderer.

XXXXXX

Twenty-four years ago, Medic didn't exist. His body did, but his mental state, wrapped in periodic fury, utter bitterness, and a good dose of madness, did not. Back then, he was known as Siegfried Dunn, a medic in the German 10th Army. It was a different era, and a different combat altogether. Dunn had seen combat in Libya, and grown cynical to the War. After seeing the blood of his comrades on the desert sand, he'd wondered if his beloved homeland would truly win. It wasn't looking good, especially considering the reports of the Eastern Front the prior year. The men in his division shared his cynicism, as quite a few had lost friends, brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, and even sons over there. No man dared to voice such an opinion, however, for he did not want to be a deemed a traitor. Their opinions instead were put out in what they didn't say. No man ever talked about what would happen after the War, or of the previous victories. Instead, they chose to speak of home, and the people they cared for.

Siegfried felt that comfort with the others in his unit. He hadn't enlisted in the Wehrmacht because of his belief in his country's ideology. No, he had joined because he had wanted to keep his family safe. He had quite a hand at medical science, and if protecting his loved ones meant healing the men who drove their enemies back from setting foot on German soil, then so be it. The brotherhood with his fellow soldiers sometimes choked him. He occasionally found it hard to sleep at night, the inability to close his eyes caused by fear of the unknown. Would Krüger, a fellow medic, be scrubbing off the medical instruments at the crack of dawn, thus throwing the annoying glow of the Sun on the eyes of his sleeping comrades, and complaining about their cleanliness quality like always? Or would there be a bullet through his head, a gaping red hole where his left eye would usually shine? Would Schneider, one of the night guards, be standing outside, his coat tightly hugging his slender form, and his rifle gripped tightly at the ready? Or would he be crawling on his stomach, screeching in pain as he dragged himself forward on the stumps that were once his legs, leaving a trail of blood behind him? The list of men and gruesome future possibilities for them was endless. Dunn's insomnia became quite acute. Walking it off would have been too dangerous, so he remained in his bunk. Try as he may, he couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen to the men he held dear. It hung over him like an engorged storm cloud that would not yet precipitate.

Unfortunately, his fears proved quite visionary. The Allied invasion was their number one problem. Directly following that were the Italian partisans. The resistance became much more active during the invasion, and its attacks on the Heer were more prevalent. Fierce battles between the Germans and the Allied Forces took the lives of thousands as the former struggled to hold the Gothic Line. Dunn put his all into keeping the men he fought alongside alive, but it was often to no avail. It didn't matter who they were or where they came from; men died. It felt like Libya all over again. Soldiers crawling on the ground, dragging broken limbs and screaming for a medic…A wounded man being half-carried to safety by two of his comrades, both of which always took care to have their firing arms free…A brave-hearted, or rather, foolish hero pouncing on an abandoned machine gun, and with all his might, releasing what was left of its magazine, and ignoring the blood that was pouring down the side of his face from a gaping wound…Was this all worth it?

There wasn't time to answer that question while he was made busy with cleaning and bandaging wounds, applying tourniquets, splinting limbs…All the while having his ears bombarded with explosions and death knells. It threatened to tear his mind to shreds, and all he could do was try to block it out by mechanically focusing on his task. He'd learned human anatomy well, and it astounded him in a chilling way as to how fragile the body truly was…How quickly it could bleed out…Siegfried tried to shut out such thoughts while he was working, but they still crept up on him. He attributed it to the overall depressing atmosphere of the battle. It was hard not to feel at least somewhat morbid under such conditions.

Then came that terrible morning when the group had awoken to find some of their comrades' throats slit. It was utterly idiotic to think that the Allied Forces had done it, and run away without doing more serious damage. No, it had been the partisans. A small band of searchers was created, and the culprits were hastily rounded up. "Culprits," however, was a broad term. It didn't extend simply to the few that had done the deed; it had also included their families, and others who had lived close to the area that the 10th Army had chosen to quarter themselves in. It was inhumanely easy to understand why: the resistance was like a hydra, kill one head, two more grow back. If one branch of resistance was killed, that branch's families would also rise up. Kill them all, and the issue would be eliminated. Men, women, and even children, innocent or otherwise, were shot to death by Heer soldiers.

The silence had been crushing, the justice done for the dead. At least, that's what it should have felt like. Dunn hadn't seen anything so surreal in his entire life. He'd heard warnings of the Italian army turning on the German army; they all had, but this was something entirely different. As he stared at some of the bodies, he took note that few of them, particularly the children, had worn white. That was different now. Their clothes were splattered scarlet. Something rose in his throat, a noise that threatened to break through the wall of ice he had mentally constructed around himself to deal with this strife. It was hard to swallow, for when he did try to do so, it came welling right back up. Siegfried found he could no longer fight against it, and backed away from the scene. There hadn't been anything to stop him from doing so; the business here was finished. Some of the other soldiers were also starting to leave. He fought hard to keep his expression neutral, and his pace calm as he walked away.

He moved carefully toward the nearby village, its remaining people completely terrified of the soldiers that were now occupying it. They'd heard the shots. That fact made the sound well up even more. He had to be quick. Spotting a small clump of trees, Dunn ducked into them. It would only be for a moment, and he wasn't escaping the periphery of the group; he just didn't want to be heard. Sunlight shone weakly through the interlocking branches, and as he raised his head, it reflected off his glasses and helmet, and caught on his armband. The blood red cross glowed in the light.

A hyena-like laugh exploded from him, stirring a few birds from the trees. He was in hysterics as he rocked back and forth on his heels with laughter, his eyes tearing up. When he felt his legs could no longer support him, he fell to the ground, clutching his stomach as he laughed even harder. He felt as if his sides were splitting as he stared down at the tree roots. Oh, they'd gotten it, all right! It was hilarious in a sickening way. Every day in skirmishes against the Allied Forces, the men alongside him dropped like flies, meanwhile the soldiers from the opposite side that caused these deaths didn't face the firing squad, the majority of their families miles among miles from the battlefield. Then, this incident where a few men were killed in the middle of night occurred, and not only their killers, but their friends, families, and neighbors took the full blame.

As Dunn continued to howl with laughter, he felt a dark undercurrent settle deep inside of him. He knew this really shouldn't be considered funny; his brothers in arms were gone, and innocents had been slaughtered. Yet, at the same time, he couldn't help it. He'd watched the killing, and derived entertainment from it. Even though Siegfried hadn't been the one to fire the rifle, he was just as guilty by association. He felt ready to roll on the ground with laughter, but chose to throw his head back instead as the most ridiculous part of it shone through. This was a losing battle. Why did they remain in Italy when their losses were so heavy? It was suicide, just like the Eastern Front, and just like Libya, yet somehow, their leader, who was worshipped like a god, allowed this sacrifice to happen. If Hitler was in fact a god, then Siegfried Dunn could consider himself damned. To be quite honest, he loved it that way.

XXXXXX

"Was good battle," Heavy commented in a jubilant voice, wiping his brow with his massive arm. The BLU team had utterly failed against the RED team, and it felt great to rub it in, especially considering how much of a handful the BLU Soldier had made himself out to be during the previous week. Medic had made sure to slice his head off at least once for the trouble he had given him.

Medic smiled. "Ja. Thank you for assisting me in cornering the Soldier." He wasn't typically used to going off and finding enemies to kill on his own.

His friend shrugged before swinging his gun up, and placing it upon the table to clean. "Was nothing, Doctor. You help me, I help you." It was strange to remember that the two used to barely get along, but Medic did well, especially during times like these.

Heavy had been a part of the Red Army, and as such the two were wary of one another, even though Medic had never set foot on the Eastern Front. They had only tolerated one another for the sake of the current war, but that wore away as time went by. Medic had learned to trust Heavy to protect him from stray bullets, and Heavy relied upon him for healing. The trust came to such a point that Heavy once told Medic why he had named his gun Sasha. It was after a young woman that had served alongside him as a medic. He claimed that she was one of the bravest people he had ever met. The reason for Natascha's name remained a mystery, but Medic counted himself lucky to hear this story from him. He never asked what happened to the real Sasha, as he didn't think he would want to know. Medic told little about those he knew in his experiences, and what he did say was only about his first tour of duty. His second never was said. The last time he told someone that sort of information, that person had abandoned him. He didn't want that to happen to him again.

There were times when Medic caught himself worrying about whether or not Heavy would still be around in later battles. He'd already had so many of his friends torn from him in the struggle to hold the Gothic Line. At least he wasn't alone in his feelings; Heavy had lost many men that he had known during the cold winter of 1942. Still, Medic didn't know whether that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

XXXXXX

"There, that should about cover your injury," Medic murmured as he effectively completed wrapping Spy's left arm.

His patient grimaced at the sight. "I suppose I am lucky it wasn't my knife-wielding arm." His comment was laced with sarcasm. Spy knew as well as Medic that the injury wouldn't put him completely out of commission, but it would be irritating. Using the Medi Gun to fix him was out of the question, as Medic was currently servicing it. It had been suffering power drains lately, and unfortunately, he couldn't ask Engineer for assistance; the man didn't know the schematics for it. Medic was hoping it would only be a slight problem, and that assistance would end up not being needed.

While the Frenchman rolled down his sleeve, Medic went through the papers on his clipboard. He stopped on one, studying it carefully. "How are your back and knee feeling?" Spy let an exasperated sigh and mumbled under his breath. Medic found his reaction funny. No matter how many times he asked, he would always be met with some resistance. Spy was completely against admitting that he suffered from the beginnings of arthritis, as it reminded him of the fact that he wasn't as young as he used to be. Only the healer knew of it, and he experienced it, himself. He would feel slight pains in his wrists and shoulders. He thought the other classes lucky to have not experienced this yet. Medic groaned, rubbing his irritated shoulder. Spy looked up at the noise, and smirked as he saw the movement. This was a typical ritual.

Still, Spy was careful with his words. "So far, they feel fine."

"No trouble moving or sleeping?" Medic pressed, writing down a few things on the paper.

"Non. You knew as well as I do that it comes and goes."

"Ja, but that is no reason to discount it," he replied firmly. A short silence passed, and Spy took the time to light a cigarette. Medic had told him more than once that smoking wasn't allowed in the infirmary, but he never listened. As long as no one else was in the room other than the two, he was allowed to do as he pleased.

"I honestly cannot believe you will be leaving us in a few months," Medic began as he lay down the clipboard on his desk, "udging by your zeal on the battlefield, one would think you just got here."

Spy chuckled, taking his cigarette out of his mouth to hold it to the side. "I see it in this sense: I am still on this team, and therefore, I should continue to give what I can."

"Surprisingly admirable," Medic replied with a smirk as he sat down, "And while you are away, I have to deal with your young, inexperienced replacement."

He nonchalantly let out a puff of smoke. "If you aren't looking forward to this, why don't you quit? You certainly must have enough time in to do so."

"I do, but I can't."

Spy raised an eyebrow on that. "Why not?"

Medic took off his glasses to clean them. "That matter does not concern you."

"Call it curiosity."

"I did not ask you why you couldn't retire until now, and as your Medic, I have known that you were unable to for years." He replied curtly, replacing them.

Spy stood straight up, dropping his cigarette and crushing it with his foot. "You disgust me."

"How do I?" Medic inquired, folding his arms.

"I would have given anything to be where you are now, able to leave this team as you please. You, meanwhile, squander this." His voice was fierce, his eyes narrow.

"I have my reasons, Spy," he replied in a calm voice.

Spy shook his head. "I doubt you have other reasons than your own madness, which is not a reason at all."

"I would rather go without the insults."

"Pity. You deserve them." At that, the Frenchman left the infirmary, the sound of his footsteps receding with the distance into nothing. Medic rolled his eyes. He could never call his relationship with his team's Spy anything but strained. This had been one of their good days. Ever since that first physical, when he had found those ugly scars running vertically down his back, he had been given his teammate's animosity.

He knew what those scars were from: flogging. He'd drawn his own conclusions from that, and the fact that Spy gave him a hateful glare from just looking at them. He decided it was better not to let Spy's commentary of his decision to remain get to him, but despite that, it did somewhat. He did have a reason for choosing this. This was all that remained to him.

XXXXXX

"To what do I owe this kind visit, Wilhelmina?" Medic growled in a sarcastic voice, his back turned to the person he was addressing as he took care to wind a clock on his mantle. The device never seemed to function properly.

"Please, Siegfried. I only wish to talk," she begged in a soft voice.

He laughed. "Talk? You want to do that again? The last time you did, you succeeded in expressing your contempt with me."

"It wasn't contempt! It was—" she cut herself off before she could ruin this conversation even more, "Will you turn to face me?"

"There should not be any difference in where I am facing while you speak with me. I am still listening, either way."

Wilhelmina let out a sigh. "I am sorry for what I did, but you have to understand why."

The clock clanged loudly as it struck the mantle, and bounced off to roll on the carpet. Medic whipped around quickly enough to catch her jumping from the noise the clock made. She was pathetic, with her light blonde hair trailing out of its well-kept bun, her brown eyes stretched wide, her pale hands clenched tightly together in front of her…God, she never looked so beautiful. "Is that what you came here for? To give me closure? You can't possibly believe how much you insult me by doing this! You think I would be pining endlessly after you like a doe-eyed school boy?!"

Her face vanished behind her hands as she cried, hurt by his verbal onslaught. He bent down to pick up the clock. It was nice to fix his eyes on the contraption, and not on her. As sweet as it was to hear her cry, a part of him ached. He didn't want her to cry, no matter how justified he was in making her do so.

XXXXXX

He had met her after the end of World War II, when he had returned after a year of being a prisoner of war to Stuttgart, his home, to find his family gone as a result of the Allied bombings. She'd been digging tirelessly through what had remained of her own family's house for her mother's favorite necklace, and explained that she wouldn't allow her mother to be buried without it. Finding a sort of camaraderie in her, as she had also lost everything, Siegfried had offered to help. The necklace, unfortunately, had never been found, but they managed to find companionship in each other. He protected her while she assisted in handling the domestic areas of the house. They lived together for a year and a half before marrying.

It wasn't until ten years later that he finally told her what he had experienced in Italy. He took care to leave out his laughing episode. Wilhelmina had been shocked by what she had heard, but she had also comforted him. She would never know the true extent of things, and Siegfried felt both relieved by and miserable at that. Perhaps she would have understood his experiments if she had heard the full story. That day of the execution, something had snapped in Dunn's mind. With each passing day, he looked back on his experiences as a field medic, and repeated the questions over and over in his head about the oddities of the human body. How much pain could the body take? How could a husk so strong relinquish its strength so easily? These and other questions had swarmed his mind, and threatened to overwhelm him. He found his release in answering these while he practiced as a doctor. So long as his patients trusted him, their lives were in his hands. So what if they took longer to heal due to unnecessary cutting? They still went home.

Wilhelmina, meanwhile, was driven morbidly scared of her husband due to these experiments. He terrified her with his poring over his notes of such procedures. Although Siegfried took her in his arms, and assured her that the patients would be all right, she was still frightened nonetheless. Then came the day that he lost his medical license. Her breaking point had been reached; he'd hurt one of his patients. Dunn had arranged to move to a quieter corner of Germany to escape the police, but she refused to go with him, handing him her wedding ring instead. After a session of slamming her down on the kitchen table and threatening her with a scalpel, Siegfried managed to quiet her against reporting his new place of residence to the police.

XXXXXX

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She cried out in a choked voice while he placed the damaged clock on a side table.

"You should be!" He snapped. He couldn't believe it; he'd treated her like a lady for all those years. He hadn't laid a hand on her until the incident involving the table, and he had always put her welfare just below his experiments on his list of priorities. He could've left her to search endlessly through that pile of rubble, but he hadn't.

A vein pulsed on Medic's neck. He'd lost all of those dear to him, and he had reached out to her. Egocentric wench! Gnashing his teeth, he pulled the wedding ring off of his finger. He'd still worn it for a good two years after the divorce, but now it meant nothing to him. In a single swishing motion, he cast the ring from him. It bounced off the bare floor once, and rolled to a stop at her foot. "Leave me."

"But—"

"NOW!" Never before had Medic exploded in such a way. His hand latched onto the mantel behind him as he panted hard, his arm shaking. It was all he could do to keep himself from strangling her. She spun and ran, her heels clattering at a frantic pace. Medic let out a final sigh, letting go as he realized that he had absolutely nothing now. He didn't cry as it set in, rather he stood in silent acceptance.

XXXXXX

Medic yawned as he sat down at his desk, rolling up his sleeves. It had been a long and tiring day. The BLU team had won, but he doubted they would be victorious again. Victories for that side were few and far between. He grimaced as he looked from his bare right arm to his left. Both sported terrible bruises from the debris that had fallen on them from the enemy Demoman's sticky bombs going off. They would fade away soon, but that didn't take away the pain they caused, or their repulsive appearances.

With a flutter of wings, Archimedes alighted on his shoulder. Medic smiled at him, and reached up one hand to stroke underneath his chin. It was time to feed his pets. As he rose from his desk, Medic was grateful for the task he usually found so monotonous. It took him away from these dark thoughts, and in a sense helped him to better deal with them. The bruises would fade, but the memory of them would always stay.


End file.
